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Maria Schön
© StaH

Maria Schön (née Tessner) * 1902

Lübecker Straße 49 a (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
MARIA SCHÖN
GEB. TESSNER
JG. 1902
EINGEWESEN 1938
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
‚VERLEGT‘ 16.8.1943
‚HEILANSTALT‘
AM STEINHOF / WIEN
ERMORDET 3.12.1945

Maria Schön, née Tessner, born on 17.9.1902 in Ohra (Danzig), admitted on 27.10.1937 to the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic of the Hansa University (Friedrichsberg), then transferred several times, transported on 16.8.1943 to the "Wagner von Jauregg – Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna" ("Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien", also known as the institution "Am Steinhof") in Vienna, where she died on 3.12.1945.

Lübecker Straße 49a (Hohenfelde)

Maria Anna (callname Maria) Tessner, a Catholic born on 17 September 1902 in Ohra, later a district of Danzig, was married to the merchant Hans Berthold Christian Schön, born on 23 December 1897 in Rostock. We do not know who her parents were. We only know the first letter of her mother‘s first name and her surname, M. Tessner.

At the time of her admission to the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic of the Hanseatic University (Friedrichsberg), Maria Schön‘s address was Hohenfelde, Lübecker Straße 49a.

Based on a diagnosis of "nervous disorder" by a registered doctor, Maria Schön spent a few days in October 1937 at St. Georg General Hospital for observation. Upon admission, she reported that she had been married for three or four years. Her father had already died, and her mother lived in Berlin. She herself was one of seven siblings. We have no further information about her childhood, youth or adult life.

During her medical history interview at St. Georg General Hospital, Maria Schön also stated that she had been treated for an ectopic pregnancy at the Ebenezer Women‘s Clinic in Barmbek (Holsteinischer Kamp/Friedrichsberger Straße) in 1934.

According to a report by the deputy director of the "Sanatorium and Nursing home Hamburg-Langenhorn” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn") from 1943 for the subsequent divorce proceedings, Maria Schön had already been observed to have mental disorders in 1936. She had been depressed and felt harassed, heard voices, and experienced olfactory hallucinations. The report did not clarify whether these observations were based on medical examinations or on information provided by her husband.

Dr. Cramer, a physician at St. Georg Hospital, arranged for Maria Schön to be transferred on 27 October 1937 to the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic of the Hanseatic University (Friedrichsberg) "due to noticeable psychological changes (risk of suicide)". Here she was diagnosed with "schizophrenia," which was treated with insulin shock and cardiazol shock therapy. (In the early 1930s, shock therapies were introduced into psychiatric treatment practice. The seizures triggered by insulin or cardiazol were intended to cure patients who had previously been considered incurable of their psychoses. Today, these treatments in their former form have disappeared from everyday psychiatric practice.)
Both treatment methods were unsuccessful, so Maria Schön was transferred to the "Sanatorium and Nursing home Hamburg-Langenhorn” on 6 April 1938. Here she was considered unfriendly, did not answer questions and "brooded to herself".

In 1938, her concerned mother inquired several times at the Langenhorn institution whether it would be possible to have her daughter released from the institution. She was informed that this could only be done with the express permission of her husband.

Maria Schön was probably one of the "quiet, non-dangerous, female mental patients" who, according to a contract from 1935, could be transferred from the Hamburg-Langenhorn mental hospital to the Anscharhöhe diaconal education and care home in Hamburg-Eppendorf. The transfer to Anscharhöhe took place on 17 February 1939.

From the above-mentioned expert opinion from 1943, we know that Hans Berthold Christian Schön was seeking a divorce from his wife. The outcome of the proceedings, which most likely ended in divorce, is not recorded in the available documents.

At the time of the heavy air raids on Hamburg in late July/early August 1943 ("Operation Gomorrha"), around 60 former Langenhorn patients were living at Anscharhöhe. On 6 August 1943, the majority of them were transferred back to Langenhorn. We do not know their exact number. Maria Schön was among them.

On 16 August, 72 women and girls from "Sanatorium and Nursing home Langenhorn” and 228 women and girls from the former Alsterdorf Asylum were transported to Vienna to the "Wagner von Jauregg - Curative and Nursing Home of the City of Vienna” ("Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien"). In addition to Maria Schön, the transport included 48 other women who had been brought back to Langenhorn from Anscharhöhe shortly before.

During her stay at the Vienna institution, Maria Schön is said to have behaved similarly to how she did in Langenhorn. She was considered to be disoriented in terms of time and place, left questions unanswered, made awkward movements with her hands and grimaced vividly. This behaviour was repeated until November 1945 and documented as essentially unchanged.

Maria Schön‘s weight, which had been only 49 kg upon her arrival in Vienna, had dropped to 35 kg during her stay. From mid-November 1945, she allegedly suffered from diarrhoea. On 2 December, it was noted that she was "visibly deteriorating". One day later, on 3 December 1945, Maria Schön died. The causes of death entered in her patient file were "schizophrenia, clinical dysentery, inanition" (emaciation to less than 80% of normal weight).

During the first phase of Nazi "Euthanasia" from October 1939 to August 1941, the institution in Vienna served as a transit facility for the Hartheim killing centre near Linz. After the official end of the murders in the killing centres, mass killings continued in the former transit centres, including the Vienna institution itself: through overdose of medication and non-treatment of illness, but above all through starvation. By the end of 1945, 257 of the 300 girls and women from Hamburg had lost their lives.

Stand: September 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: StaH 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalten Abl. 1/1995 Nr. 24834 (Maria Schön); Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv, Bestand Wagner von Jauregg-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt der Stadt Wien, Patientenakte Maria Schön. Peter von Rönn, Der Transport nach Wien, in: Peter von Rönn u.a., Wege in den Tod, Hamburgs Anstalt Langenhorn und die Euthanasie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1993, S. 425 ff.;
Zu Schocktherapien:
https://www.200.uk-erlangen.de/de/geschichte/momentaufnahmen-des-universitaetsklinikums-erlangen/anfaenge-der-schocktherapie/index.html (Zugriff am 21.1.2015).